It had been one of those bad trips!
Nothing disastrous but a catalogue of small irritations starting with my arrival at Koln Eifeltor Guterbahnhof on the outbound leg, expecting a night’s sleep on the Kombivehrkehr to Ludwigsburg. “Ve gif you paper, you can drive.” The gruff Deutsche Bundesbahn functionary informed me as he stamped my ticket. “Why,” I asked. “Ve are voll mit Schenker contract,” was the reply as the window in the booking office was closed on my frowning visage. I knocked on the window and it was grudgingly opened, “What about my diesel?” I asked. “Is your problem,” came the surly reply. “But I’ve paid the train fare and now you tell me you can’t take me on my reserved train and now I have to pay diesel and presumably more road tax!” The uncivil servant on the other side muttered, “You wait ‘till tomorrow train or you drive,” You can take me tomorrow?” I continued. The clerk merely shrugged and shut the window. Fuming I returned to my truck and sat behind the wheel weighing up the options as my blood pressure returned to something approaching normality.
I knew I had made a mistake when Ken in the office had cajoled me into leaving for Istanbul on December 9th when he had solemnly promised me Christmas at home with the family before I had agreed to the previous trip where I had unexpectedly had to backload mohair from a plant near Sivas in snowbound eastern Turkey which had cost me an additional week. “Don’t worry,” he had assured me over the phone in the company’s office on ■■■■■■■■■■■ Caddesi in Istabul, “I’ll guarantee I won’t send you out again before Christmas!” And so I had traipsed through the foul Turkish winter over Bolu, through Ankara, over the pass at Akdagmadenli and at last loaded, within a couple of hours as it turned out, at the Teksa plant on the east side of Sivas city. That was the easy bit. It had then taken two whole days to obtain the customs papers and I was not a happy bunny when I had locked up the GMC at Harem, taken the car ferry across to Sirkeci , and then a taxi to the office where the charming Madame Ira Maslenikoff had organised all the transit documents. Once again Ken had reassured me that this would be my last trip before the festive season and I had achieved a flyer with a four day transit back to London. I left the trailer in Dover and hotfooted it up to the smoke in the tractor, parking it in the Vauxhall Bridge coach park before catching the tube up to the West End.
Ken Johnson, the manager, a jolly rotund bespectacled young man, had welcomed me as I entered the OHS office just off Oxford circus. A little bit too welcoming I had felt and my defences were up as I handed in my paperwork and my expenses. I should have guessed something was up when he passed them without comment handing the papers to Kebir Atlas with the instruction to pay me in cash. “It will take time,” Kebir had replied, “I need to visit the bank.” “It’s lunchtime,” Ken announced, “Let’s go down to the pub!” This was common practice at the time so I was not particularly forewarned of Ken’s evil intentions. “Andy,” he said as he handed me a pint of Youngs SPA, “We have a problem and I need your help.” Now my defences were definitely rising. I took a long draught of the cool nectar as he continued. “We took on an emergency load of axles out of Eaton’s for the Bedford plant in Istanbul. Mehmet Ali should have been here to collect it but he’s broken down in Van Hove’s having dropped a piston. Won’t be moving for at least a week and the Bedford plant will be at a standstill by then. I’m really sorry,” and here there was real concern in his eyes, “But I need you to turn round today and be on the ferry tonight.” “But I’ve not even been home yet,” I blustered. “Look Andy there’s no other way to put this. We’re in the shxt. Genoto, the Bedford dealer is our second biggest customer and if we lose them I can’t see Orhan buying any more trucks for the UK operation. By the way I’m authorised to offer you an extra £200 and I’ll make sure we don’t question your expenses!” he smiled. “Ken you promised I’d be home for Christmas.” “You’ll still be home in time. Istanbul have your back load ready now. It’s from Soktas which is on the European side so you’ll have a fast turnround. You’ve got fourteen days after all!” and so muggins had agreed, phoned a furious wife, picked up the unit and collected the brand new already loaded trailer from Cooks yard at Rainham. They had just fitted a tilt to the American Dorsey trailer and Ken had organised a shunter to load in the Midlands and bring it back. Normally we travelled unit only in the U.K. as we were only taxed as private cars but on this emergency occasion Ken had prevailed on me to risk it down to Dover. Hopefully this would be brownie points stored up for the future!
So here I was sitting in Koln Eifeltor station, technically out of hours on my log book and with no hope of catching the train. Christmas at home was already looking unachievable and I was cursing myself for being so gullible. I hunched over the GMC Astro’s steering wheel despondently thinking I’d have a couple of hour’s sleep and then hit the road overnight. I knew that if I took to the bunk I would still be in the station come morning. The arc lights of the goods yard were piercing down through the gloom and a light snow fall was pattering my vast windscreens. The train in front of me was loading, Schenker after Schenker after Schenker. The clerk had not lied! Just as I was dozing off there was a sharp knock on the door. I opened the window and peered down at the peak capped official responsible for the disturbance. Good grief they were not even going to allow me to sleep in peace! “You want go on train to Ludwigsburg,” he shouted up at me. “Ja Bitte,” my answer was instant. “Ve haf ein platz at front of train but you must reverse on. Ist gut?” he asked somewhat rhetorically. I had started the motor by the time he asked the question and was waved to the front of the train. It transpired that they had taken a wagon off for repair and when it returned it had to be placed at the head of the train as the rear was against the loading ramp. All the Schenkers were unaccompanied so could not be moved. Truly it was my lucky day. In addition, I was the only driver in the sleeping car so with my choice of bunk got a good night’s sleep into the bargain.
Next morning I was again counting my blessings as we were shunted into Ludwigsburg goods yard. Being at the front I was feverishly undoing the metal clamps almost as soon as we juddered, train metallic brakes screeching, to a halt. Within half an hour I was skirting Stuttgart and congratulating myself on the complete day that I must have saved. Out onto the A8 the snow was blizzarding down and a whistling gusting wind blowing great clouds of it across the motorway straight from Siberia by the feel of it. However the road was dry enough not to worry too much about slippage. Then we hit the Talesberg pass with all sorts of dire warning notices posted at the roadside invoking caution at all times. Here the road bifurcated with the two carriageways separated by the forested mountain and immediately a steep relentless climb commenced. I was running at about 36 tonnes, well within the capacity of my Detroit V8 rated at 320 BHP. The capability of the gearbox however was another matter. It was a fully automatic Allison with five speeds plus a high and low ratio. However the high or low had to be selected while stationary so if you hit country which looked difficult you stopped in good time and selected low before continuing. I knew that the Talesberg was borderline at this weight but had foolishly decided to ‘risk it’. Needless to say the box stared to change down and it was becoming obvious that we would have difficulty getting to the top in high ratio. There was nothing for it but to grind to a halt, select low ratio and continue at a snail’s pace for the rest of the incline. This I did stopping on the hard shoulder. Traffic was light so I was easily able to regain the slow lane and then the truck crawler lane moving at about seven miles per hour. It had crossed my mind that the motor would be sucking fuel at a terrific rate at this speed and further I was gripping the wheel encouraging the beast to keep going as we encountered slightly steeper gradients and the MPH guage dropped alarmingly. Then, without any warning, the engine coughed, missed a few beats and resumed running at a couple of thousand revs. What could it be? Dirty fuel? Air in the fuel lines perhaps? I knew we had loads of diesel because we had left Rainham on full tanks which meant at least 700 litres over the two tanks strapped either side of the tractor chassis. In addition I had about 1800 litres of red diesel in the belly tank which I had managed to have sealed at Dover customs in the open position. Soon the Detroit coughed again, missed a few more beats and restarted and I knew I would have to pull onto the hard shoulder in case we stopped altogether. Once on the hard shoulder the sporadic coughing continued, but I noticed that if I took my foot off the accelerator the spluttering stopped immediately and so I continued in this manner for a couple of kilometres until the inevitable happened and my steed refused to stagger on any further. Once stopped I found that the motor would start and idle but there was no way it would allow us to regain mobility.
Hazard lights flashing, I jumped down from the cab into the snowblown murk and opened the left hand tank screwcap. I could see diesel and estimated it was about a quarter full. The other tank on the right side was still brimming so fuel shortage was not the problem. The Detroit had automatic bleed so there was little point in tilting the cab. Through the trees on the side of the autobahn I could see the odd car traversing what appeared to be a country lane. There was nothing for it but to find a phone and call the London office for advice so I locked up and placed my warning triangle a couple of hundred metres down the motorway dodging the sheets of slush kicked up by each passing vehicle. This in fact was a lucky move because the lane running next to the autobahn became easily accessible through a gate which must have been put there for emergency vehicles. I climbed over this and brushed the snow from my blue parka and gained the lane intending to flag down a car for a lift to the next village from where, I hoped I could phone London. We had had it drummed into us to do everything to avoid being towed off the autobahn partly because of the expense but also because of the interminable time it could take to arrange the tow and the subsequent repairs. Time was something I did not have on my side if I was to be home in time for Christmas. Then disaster really struck! The first car hoving into view was a green and white police Volkswagen. Needless to say, I did not attempt to stop it but it skidded to a halt anyway!
